MUMBAI: By downloading a singing app, Richa Peter Topno turned into a star overnight. Richa is the first Indian winner of the 10 Grand Challenge the singing contest hosted by StarMaker, a user generated music and video platform.  The online singing contest allows the participant to record a solo cover with its mobile app, and submit it to participate in the challenge. Richa won with an astounding 369904 votes from amongst more than 25000 participants from all over the world. Every year India sees millions of teenagers taking part in online and off-line music talent shows as a route to realize their singing career aspirations.

Speaking of her 10000 USD win Richa said, “StarMaker is a perfect platform for aspiring singers like me to reach out to a global audience. The response has been amazing and of course, the prize money is simply awesome. I would like to thank every single person who voted for me.” The 21-year-old from Pune hopes that this win is just the beginning of an exciting phase in her singing career.

“In the past few months, we are excited to witness India is rising as one of our fastest growing market with the most active users .We are also pleasantly surprised to find out that there are so many singing enthusiasts in India,” said the CEO of StarMaker Roger C.

“As we are putting more efforts to localize Starmaker in India, we strongly believe more talented Indian singers like Richa will be discovered and heard in the near future,” added Roger. Starmaker is also partnering with American Idol to offer Front of The Line audition passes to aspiring singers.

Headquartered in San Francisco, the StarMaker app just reached 50 million users milestone in July. With over 1,00,000 daily downloads in India, the app connects music lovers from places like Pune, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow and Ahmedabad to name a few. The next leg of the contest is expected to be announced in September next month.